


The Trapeze Swinger

by iamamiwhoami



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Autumn, Based on a Play, Character Death, Confessions, Drinking, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Angst, Love, Major Illness, Minor Character Death, Minor Relationships, Outer Space, Photography, Seasons, Self-Harm, Spring, Summer, Time Skips, Winter, fragments, overcoming, reminiscences, supergirl - Freeform, woman loving woman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22964935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamamiwhoami/pseuds/iamamiwhoami
Summary: Fragments are sewn into each human being. Sometimes colored pieces of soft texture or carbonized paper in thousands of hovering ashes, sometimes printed photographs or countless particles of shattered glass. Sometimes stars. Sometimes tears. In a world of touchable metaphors and intangible losses, they are always in fragments pursuing and beseeching for a single glimpse of eternity.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Lena Luthor, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Imra Ardeen/Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Cat Grant, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Lucy Lane
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	1. Act I: The Farewell Within Twelve Months

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys. This story was deliberately inspired by a play I watched almost a year ago (called "Fragments to Remember Me") and the song "The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron & Wine. It is divided into three acts, three equidistant inevitably intertwined.
> 
> I do not intend to use too many words up here. I'll just ask for your patience, because english is not my native language, and I hope you have a good read and perhaps comes to enjoy it.

Kara walked up the stairs of the building on Argo Street as if she were crossing a red carpet for glory. National City was shining despite the winter, birds hovered singers in the blue sky, the avenues were covered with cheerful people under the Sun and Valentine's Day was approaching, which meant a town beginning to be filled with flowers and poetry.  
  
For her, however, there was nothing more fascinating than the day-to-day. A red rose stuck to the stem in her teeth, iced lattes in one hand and a package of tomato toast, southwest tofu scramble, quinoa fruit salad and pumpkin granola yogurt parfait, Noonan's healthiest breakfast, just to pamper and please her girlfriend. She spent the entire last evening putting together a major editorial in The National Herald, and a single night was enough to miss Catherine.  
  
Kara is in love with her.  
  
She wants to marry her. Every day she thinks about it since they started dating four years ago. Just a smile, a sarcastic sentence, a fashion tip, a repressed groan, any word of affection or security, and Kara wanted to run away to buy the most beautiful ring and kneel before her.  
  
They would live together forever in an apartment filled with Kara's amateur paintings and Catherine's photographs and warmth and love spreading everywhere. It was all she could dream of when she took a deep breath before opening the door to her 4A apartment, their sanctuary, the home she wanted to return to every day, into the arms she wanted to rest in for the rest of her life.  
  
When she entered, however, something was different.  
  
There was no Catherine asleep on the bed across the loft. There was no Catherine waking up naked and ethereal, looking at her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. There was no Catherine in the armchair reading the newspaper or already preparing for a busy day at Catco.  
  
The day-to-day life was broken.  
  
Catherine was at the window, watching the sunny streets, arms crossed, two suitcases beside her and the heavy breathing that could be heard from the entrance where Kara petrified with incomprehensible surprise.  
  
"Cat?" She whispered, the rose falling from her lips.  
  
Catherine turned calmly, as if she were waiting for her, her face serene, but her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and Kara's heart broke over the fragments of the lost day-to-day.  
  
"Kara." She sighed with disguised anguish, under the surface, sounding calm and composed as always.  
  
"Cat." Kara repeated blindly, dropping the bag and the breakfast on the kitchen table, her dockside shoes echoing unsteady footsteps on the wooden floor as she approached with growing fear unknown. "What's going on?"  
  
Catherine tilted her head and there was a tenderness in her eyes that almost hurt Kara with the tears that threatened to escape and fall from her eyelids. "I'm leaving, Kara."  
  
Kara's agitated steps immediately stopped and the floor seemed to disappear under her feet. It was not an aggressive or malicious statement. It was simple. Clean cut.  
  
"Excuse me?" She whispered dazed.  
  
"I'm leaving, Kara." Catherine repeated it with the same tranquillity, almost turning again to face the window, but forcing herself to keep her eyes on Kara's. "The apartment and the furniture are yours."  
  
Kara exhaled trembling, shaking her head, still wondering if she should approach her. "What do you mean you're leaving?"  
  
Catherine crossed her arms and immediately Kara knew there was something wrong, because she always crossed her arms when she was in affliction. She sighed with her eyes closed once and lifted her chin to maintain her composure. "Four years ago I arrived, for four I stayed and now it's time for me to leave."  
  
"Why? Why would you leave?" Kara insisted, fingers squeezing her forehead when she felt involuntary tears trying to escape, her eyeglasses fogging up with her choking breath.  
  
"Kara..." Catherine sighed again, as if she was exhausted from everything.  
  
"You owe me at least that." Kara shook her head in disbelief once again, losing the battle against tears streaming down her face. "What did I do? What did you do? What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing is wrong."  
  
"Now you're going to lie to me?" She pursed her lips, shrugging as if the lie hurt more than the departure.  
  
Catherine stared again at the journalist's blue orbs and it was as if she had been truly seeing her since she entered the apartment. As if the gravity of the circumstances were finally reaching her and suddenly her tears were also flowing and she hated to feel so vulnerable.  
  
"Kara." She sniffed discreetly and stared at the ceiling for a brief moment. "Two months ago I underwent some medical tests. The day after I forgot where my car was parked. Do you remember?"  
  
"Your routine exams... You do it every month..." Kara nodded cautiously.  
  
It felt like forever until Catherine's voice came again. National City was still shining despite the winter, birds were still hovering in the blue sky, the avenues were still covered with happy people under the sun, Valentine's Day was still approaching and soon the town would still be filled with flowers and poetry.  
  
But it was cold inside the apartment.  
  
"I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s."  
  
Kara blinked and she thought she lost the sentence. "What?"  
  
Catherine did not hesitate. "Alzheimer's. A month ago."  
  
Kara's tears stopped and she felt as if she was about to lose consciousness. Because Catherine would not mock her or lie to deceive her feelings, it was who she was, always, always a clean cut, with no bloody words to spurt.  
  
"What..." She repeated, stammering. "How? What does this mean?"  
  
"Well..." Taking a distant and severe stance, Catherine clicked her tongue, forcing herself to stop her own tears, walking around the small space as she used to do bossing in her office at Catco. "Chronic degenerative progressive disease, the most common type of dementia, composed of different stages that..."  
  
"I know what Alzheimer's is." Kara swallowed, hating to see the woman she loves raising all the walls around her, as she was when they met seven years ago, when Kara was still attending college. "I want to know why you are leaving."  
  
Catherine frowned. "Isn't it obvious to you, Miss Zor-El?"  
  
"Don't..." Kara almost gritted her teeth, remembering the years ago when they were just two strangers. "Don't _Miss Zor-El_ me. We've come too far. I'm your girlfriend, Catherine Grant."  
  
"You were." She tried to keep herself together, but the sentence sounded like ghostly agony, tears returning to their eyes. "Now I must leave from your life."  
  
"We can fight this." Suddenly Kara clenches her fists, two steps forward, not enduring to stay away from her anymore. "Cat, we can do this together. I promised that I would never leave you alone."  
  
"You did." Then, Catherine surprisingly smiled softly at her. "You also said before this promise that you couldn't leave me without losing a part of yourself, no matter where the course of life would take us. That is why I am taking this choice into my hands and feeling that I am losing myself by having to leave you."  
  
"Then don't." Kara cried, raising her arms in a noncommittal surrender. "Let me be by your side. Let me help you and take care of you."  
  
"I don’t need to be cared for." Catherine crossed her arms again, she couldn't back out, she couldn't give in, turning to face cheerful Argo Street through the windows.  
  
"Everyone does, at least sometimes." Kara didn't resist another second, crossing the infinite centimetres between them, standing in front of her and holding her face with both hands, warm secret tears sliding down on her palms. "It's been four years, Cat. Four years facing the world together. You can't give up now."  
  
"Give up?" Catherine laughed wryly, her hands softly covering Kara's, even though she was desperate not to cling with her last strength to the journalist's gentle and devoted touch. "There is no cure, Kara. My limited power is to have the right to decide how I'm going to deal with it."  
  
"I don't understand..." The plea in Kara's voice was devastating. "Please make me understand..."  
  
"Kara Zor-El..." She took Kara's hands to intertwine their fingers between their bodies, allowing herself to look at her one last time, to feel the grace and tenderness and all the beauty of that creature that gave more life to her in four years than she has felt her entire life. "I think you're the only person who truly loved me besides my sons. And when you walked through the door today, cheerful, sparkling, bringing light and warmth, that's exactly how I need to keep you. I make the choice to hurting now, because I prefer the present than watching you languish helplessly as I disappear. I saw it happen to my ungrateful shrew mother and she wasn't even good for me."  
  
Clean cut.  
  
"But..." Kara, weak and still bursting into tears, shrugs and looks at the floor, accepting, breaking from the inside out, and then looking back at her as if she was everything she couldn't stop, but also everything she couldn't lose. "But I love you."  
  
"I love you too." The naturalness of the confession and her smile broke Kara even more. "But I need to do this on my own terms. I lived, I didn't give up. I was happy. I was great. I still am."  
  
"What about me?" She couldn't help but squeeze Catherine's hands tightly, trying to hold on to the last fragile thread. "What about me, Cat?"  
  
But Catherine continued to smile, releasing the intertwining of their fingers so that Kara clung to the fabric of her skirt and she could gently wipe away the flowing tears on her reddened face. "You will be healed soon and you will be happy. You are young and the youngness in your heart will allow you not to be marked forever. You will live, my precious Kara. And you will be even greater."  
  
Kara leaned in the middle of the promise and caught her lips, mouths open colliding for the last time. Catherine didn't fight it, clinging to her golden hair as the journalist propelled her upward, the hug firmly around her waist, tightening their bodies together. Catherine felt her feet leaving the floor and Kara's hands everywhere, gasping lost in the desperate movement of the kiss, both secretly wishing that time could grant mercy and stop in an infinite instant where they would remain just like that.  
  
Slowing down the fire, they hugged and Kara cried on her shoulder like a heartbroken child, Catherine keeping gentle strokes on her hair and the world still passing outside. Kara couldn't tell how long they were holding each other in the middle of the cold apartment, but she felt her last forces draining as Catherine let her go, bending down to pick up her bags, her high heels echoing across the room to the door, from the door to the corridor, distancing in an echo and silencing in the stairs.  
  
When Kara came to her senses again, her face dry and burning swollen, her legs trembling from being paralyzed staring at a door that would no longer be opened, the sun had already disappeared in the windows and the red rose lay withered on the table.  
  
  
  
  
The open-concept studio was empty and dusty. It was a rainy spring day and the fresh air invaded through some shattered windows surrounding the entire length of the space. The paint of the walls was faded and the floor was bare, an old abandoned wooden cross hanging from the iron sliding door. Elegance and cleanliness were needed, but as a visionary, Catherine Grant was able to see the full potential of it, parading back and forth with her measuring tape and a color catalog.  
  
Sam came in with the last box and smiled when she saw her staring at a large wall in the back where she would probably create a mural with her photographs. She had suggested that Catherine organize a mural with tasks and reminders, but a single frown and she decided to respect her friend's seclusion.  
  
Catherine turned to her with a satisfied smile, despite the dark circles and exhaustion hidden under her makeup. "You could easily leave the executive branch and join the housing market, my friend." She looked around and sighed. "It is perfectly adequate."  
  
"You said to keep it simple and quiet." Sam nodded, dusting her hands. "I met the owner of the building in that coffee shop I used to frequent with Lena, the 'Legion Caffeine'. Miss Ardeen is also the owner there and she said she could find something better, but if you have no sarcastic remarks to make, I will take this as you liked it. "  
  
"It's perfect." She reduced the sentence, smiling genuinely.  
  
"Have you decided who will keep Catco's keys?"  
  
"Andrea Rojas. Morgan Edge was trying to buy it, but I still have my memories of this arrogant bastard and I left an almost polite message in his office. Rojas is bold and she has vision. Undoubtedly my best choice."  
  
Sam watched her for a moment. It was strange to see Catherine Grant in a simple white shirt and jumpsuit jeans with a pair of tools in her pockets, the camera hanging from her neck. It looked nothing like the elegant and intimidating woman she met when she babysitted a little Carter Grant. But she could still see her out of sight, the determination, the strength, the stubbornness. The great Cat.  
  
"This was the last box." Sam shrugged, pointing to the pile of labeled boxes by the door.  
  
Catherine almost nodded, but suddenly she opened her eyes wide and looked around quickly, alarmed. "Where's Kara's photo album? I must have left on Catco." She looked distressed, swallowing hard. "Would you call..."  
  
"Cat." Sam interrupted calmly. "The album is in the box next to you. You brought it here yourself."  
  
"Oh..." Catherine aimed at the boxes beside the empty wall. "I must have forgotten."  
  
Fortunately Sam responded just as naturally. "A lot of things to organize. You're doing amazing, okay?"  
  
Catherine nodded with relief. "Will you be staying for lunch?"  
  
"I'm going to meet Lena at the port." She smiled sheepishly, shrugging again. "We'll spend the afternoon together."  
  
"A date, I presume."  
  
"A lunch between friends."  
  
"It could be a date."  
  
"But it's not."  
  
"And when will it be?"  
  
"Cat..." Sam sighed. "Lena is my best friend."  
  
"And you've been in love with her forever." Catherine smiled tenderly. "Don't you think it's time to tell her?"  
  
"I don't want to ruin what we have."  
  
"Oh, please, Samantha." She rolled her eyes, but kept her smile. "We are talking about Lena Luthor, a NASA engineer, an outer space scholar who stated precisely 'you cannot live in fear' when asked if she was not too young to participate in a rocket project. You cannot be a coward when around that woman."  
  
"Can we leave the subject of cowardice when it comes to passions outside of our agenda?"  
  
Realization hit Catherine. Kara. She intended to argue that the circumstances differed, but she could understand the appeal. As a renowned journalist, known as the Queen of All Media, she has watched several lives go by and lovers who have endured together the most catastrophic challenges. Perhaps she was indeed a coward. She was not strong enough to share her gradual suffering with Kara and let Kara suffer with her. Perhaps she was too weak to ask and accept.  
  
"You should tell her, Samantha."  
  
Sam picked up her bag from the floor and smiled sadly. "I know. Take care, Cat."  
  
Catherine sighed as Sam left and sat on one of the boxes. She contemplated the symphony of a mild drizzle outside and the apartment demanding hard work to perhaps become a home, her first step on the unknown journey.  
  
She got up, walked slowly to the metal sliding door, positioned the camera on and recorded the first day.  
  
  
  
  
Sam leaned on the pier and sighed as the twilight was engulfed by the ocean on the horizon, golden waters reflecting calm in her afflicted eyes. The summer was calm and children ran playing in the sand and diving in the waves, enjoying their vacation with ice cream and smiles and sharing memories that never come back. She was lost in the moment, in the sound and the heat, three buttons of the blue shirt open and the sunglasses almost falling from her head in the strong wind of late afternoon.  
  
She was ready. She had been preparing since her conversation with Cat in the studio by the spring and she couldn't help it anymore. At every brunch and movie and bar and walk in the park she wanted to reveal her feelings and now she was finally about to do so.  
  
Lena was approaching across the pier and what a vision she was. Her hair was floating on her shoulders, her clothes were rarely casual, especially the sneakers, giving her a subtle and adorable look and Sam wanted to run and hug her and twirl with her until they were dizzy and saw the twilight upside down at the sound of their own laughter.  
  
She was spared her fantasy when Lena hugged her tightly and murmured the comfort of the meeting, sweet and soft. "I missed you." She whispered.  
  
"It hasn't even been a week." Sam teased and laughed when she rolled her eyes. "I missed you too."  
  
There was a strange silence as they walked arm in arm in the port, across boats and bathers, occasionally looking sideways at each other. It wasn't until the sun was almost disappearing into the sea when they sat on a wooden bench at the end of the pier, taking a distance from each other, that Sam felt the demand of the moment summoning her.  
  
But then they turned around at the same time, voices sounding at the same time, as if it were providential.  
  
"Sam, I've been trying to tell you..."  
  
"Lena, I have to tell you..."  
  
They inevitably laughed together.  
  
"You first." Lena offered with a soothing smile.  
  
Sam turned to her on the bench and gently held her cold hands, gazing at her face, red lipstick, green eyes, all shining under the last glimpse of the sun. The woman she has been in love with for so long, the feeling that never diminishes, on the contrary, expanded and blossomed inside her every time she simply looked at her.  
  
"There's something I want to tell you. I've been wanting to tell you for a long time, but I never thought that I should. That I... Could." She looked away from her eyes for an instant, swallowing.  
  
Lena gently held her chin and brought her eyes together again. "What is it, Sammy?"  
  
The softness disarmed Sam. "Lena..." She exhaled a whisper. "I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since we met at this same port, when I bumped into you and dropped your whiskey flask in the sand and thought you would yell at me right there and you just smiled and took out another flask of your purse as if it were the most natural thing to do." Then she laughed anxiously, feeling the weight fall from her shoulders.  
  
But Lena wasn't laughing.  
  
Her hand trembled under Sam's chin and her eyes widened like a beacon. She lowered her hand and then withdrew from Sam on the bench, almost curled up like a cornered animal. Sam saw fear and confusion and it broke her heart instantly.  
  
"You..." Lena whispered and shook her head in disbelief. "You can't."  
  
"Lena..." Sam tried to reach her, but suddenly Lena was on her feet, moving away from her on the pier.  
  
"You can't be in love with me!" Lena repeated sharply and painfully. "How dare you say that to me now?"  
  
"I'm not getting it..." Sam stood up, not knowing what to do.  
  
"Now?" Lena looked desperate, walking around herself, almost gasping in distress. "Are you telling me that right now?"  
  
"I don't..." Sam opened her mouth and all the words were stuck. "Lena, please..."  
  
"We have been best friends for years and you decided to tell me now?!"  
  
"Please tell me what I did wrong." Sam pleaded, assuming and breaking with herself that Lena did not and would never respond to her feelings and she had made the biggest mistake of her life. "I'm sorry, I should never have..."  
  
"You should!" Lena exclaimed and terrified Sam by seeing tears in her eyes. "You should, a long time ago. Now..." She sighed, running away from Sam's pleading expression. "It's too late."  
  
"What?" Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I have..." Lena closed her eyes, the sting of tears aching. "I came to tell you that in a few months I will be going on a mission. In space."  
  
Sam didn't feel it shatter immediately. She continued to stare at Lena with furrowed brows, mouth open and silent. For a moment she thought that her body would fold into a writhing squeezed ball and she would stay there, absorbing the revelation until it stopped hurting.  
  
She swallowed, her throat dry. "How long?"  
  
"Months?" Lena shrugged, looking at the sky in a foolish attempt to collect the tears back. "A whole year? I don't know."  
  
"And why does it matter?"  
  
"How can you even ask me something like that?"  
  
"I would wait my entire life for you." Feeling overwhelmed by not understanding the gravity of the circumstance, Sam exclaims her despair, breathing erratically. "I have waited a long time and would wait as long as necessary!"  
  
Lena narrowed her eyes, her teeth chattering with the fleeting tears. "You... It's an experimental project, my project. My coordinates, my exploration team. I don't know..."  
  
The sun had disappeared and the night was beginning to fall, bringing violent gusts of wind. Sam looked at her, hands shaking, watery eyes, and she finally felt the shatter.  
  
"You're saying that you may not come back."  
  
Through a long, hard breath, Lena brushed the tears from her cheeks and nodded. "Every mission is a risk, as are all discoveries of the humankind."  
  
"And are you willing to go anyway?" The hurt and confused impulse made Sam almost growl at her, aching and aching all over her body and mind.  
  
"Willing?" Lena laughed bitterly. "I've been working on it for years."  
  
"And you didn't mind telling, I don't know, that you were taking the risk of dying in space?"  
  
"You would never understand."  
  
"Wouldn't I?" Sam approached her, holding her arms weakly, as if she could shake her and get that absurd idea out of her head, her hands barely squeezing her arms to turn into a pleading caress. "You throw on me that it took me a long time to confess my feelings, but did you keep this dangerous mission from me?" Tears stung her eyelids and she couldn't contain it.  
  
"For the same exact reason you didn't tell me about your feelings!" Lena tried to push her away, but Sam held her against her chest, so she wouldn't see her crying, and Lena struggled for a second before grabbing her waist and sobbing soaking her shirt. "I was scared... I was so scared..."  
  
"So don't go."  
  
"Sam..." Lena moved away an inch to hold her agonizing face with her hands, caressing it. "I wasn't afraid to embark on the mission. I was afraid I was going to hurt you."  
  
Of course. Lena would not hold her own life in high regard. She was not afraid to travel through space and do her duty, she was not afraid to get lost up there. The only fear she could keep was hurting the only person left in her life after losing her mother when she was four, her adoptive parents in an accident at the lab, her brother to alcoholism and the only two friends she ever had besides Sam, two astronauts named Querl Dox and Winslow Schott, in a prototype explosion on the platform. She was not afraid of the risk. It had always been part of her life.  
  
It was different for Sam. She already lost a lot, but she never considered losing Lena.  
  
Lena stood on tiptoe and kissed her forehead, the red mark as a reminder of a farewell, moving away from her touch to pick up her purse on the bench and continue out across the pier.  
  
"Don't do this." Sam didn't turn to her, facing the darkness of the ocean ahead. "Don't walk away from me now. Please, don't."  
  
She heard Lena's anguished sigh. "I already did. I had to."  
  
Lena never said if she was in love with her too and Sam realized that she was no longer sure if she wanted to find out.  
  
  
  
  
Dry leaves shattered under her boots as she walked across the avenue towards the hotel. Lena straightened her long scarf and hid her hands in her coat, quickening her steps in the empty night. She always loved autumn, but every season of the year began to seem like a distant memory in her drowning thoughts.  
  
She was dressed to kill, as she always was at constant meetings in that hotel, her maddening thin dress under her coat, her high-knee boots, red lipstick and dark eyes, her hair waving sparkling in the night wind. She was trying to focus on the taste, how in a few minutes she would be moaning and panting in the hands of another woman, and she would come and whine on her fingers and mouth and do the same to her until they fell exhausted on the bed, but since Sam's confession, she just hasn't been able to focus on the world around her.  
  
It was unbearable.  
  
Lena stepped into the darkness of the room and familiarity was like a momentary breath of salvation. The redhead was sitting in an armchair, already naked, enjoying a beer, and she smiled almost adorably when their eyes met. And Lena plunged into lust, she had to, she wanted to devour her. She slid her coat down her shoulders and the redhead immediately stood up to grab her by her thighs, Lena's legs entwining her hips, hungry mouths colliding and biting and licking and she wanted to drown in the sensation.  
  
She couldn't help feeling everything, but it was never the same again. When the redhead pressed her against the door and made her come with her fingers deliciously in and out of it, she thought of Samantha Arias. When she dropped to her knees and plunged between the redhead's legs, making her squirm and almost break the big mirror on the wall, she thought of Samantha Arias. When their bodies slid over each other on the bed, rolling up the sheets, the friction making her burn and exclaim wildly, all she could think about was Sam.  
  
For almost a year sleeping with Alexandra Danvers as if nothing else existed or mattered, because a long time ago she had convinced herself that she and Sam could never be more than friends, because she had to focus on the mission that was the dream that she shared with Dox and Winn, since that twilight on the pier she can't take her mind off her best friend who opened her heart only to get pain in return and it was killing Lena.  
  
Would it have made a difference if she knew earlier?  
  
Would it have made a difference if she herself was brave enough to confess earlier?  
  
Hours later, she finished zipping up her high-knee boots and watched the hedhead smoking on the porch in the dark room, sitting recklessly on the railing as the wind blew smoke around her and the streetlights illuminated her silhouette and she knew she couldn't keep going.  
  
In the face of the redhead's saddened smile, Lena believed she knew it too.  
  
"Alex..." she whispered almost imperceptibly.  
  
"We never talked to each other since the first night in that bar, did we, Lena?" The redhead threw the cigarette down the street and leaned on the rail.  
  
"No." Lena nodded ruefully. "We really didn't."  
  
"It would have been nice."  
  
"It would. I feel like I don't know anything about you and you must be an extraordinary woman."  
  
"So you must be." She shrugged. "I tried to fall in love with you. Every single night."  
  
"Just like me." Lena got up and put on her coat, approaching the porch light. "In time, I thought I could."  
  
The redhead nodded, giving a loose laugh. "Come here."  
  
Lena stepped and fell against her, the languid kiss and the wind making her shiver and arch in Alexandra's hands, trying not to let go, Samantha's face and smile and pain echoing inside her, making her gasp and slide her tongue inside the redhead's mouth, receiving the same need they never talked about and would never do.  
  
Breathing away, she let the redhead straighten her coat, lipstick and loose strands of her hair, reciprocating by straightening her leather jacket and bangs to the right side. Lena handed her part of the hotel payment and smiled at her for everything they tried to share in that same room, dancing naked on that same bed.  
  
She closed the door to not look back.  
  
  
  
  
Alexandra took a sip of her intoxicated coffee with brandy and looked out over the cold streets on her way to the hospital. Soon winter would come and with it the holidays and National City would be reborn in lights and decorations and shops crowded with people. It didn't matter much to her. It had been a long time since she had celebrated anything, as if she were detaching herself from the real world.  
  
The clock hit ten and she knew she was late. She should have taken her motorcycle, but the walk helped to numb as much as the brandy that intoxicated the coffee. The rest of her day would be to listen to people mourning or suffering from mental disorders and childhood traumas and there was a time when she would be committed to being the best possible psychiatrist, but at some point on the line it was no longer a priority.  
  
At some point, she couldn't deceive, when her wife Kelly Olsen left her with a letter saying that she enlisted and would soon be leaving for the Middle East. Or maybe the point was when she got a call from her brother in law, James, the one who survived, telling that Kelly had disappeared for weeks and was pronounced dead. Or maybe when she freaked out and broke the whole apartment they once shared.  
  
It didn't matter. Not anymore.  
  
She crossed the lobby without greeting staff or patients, looking down, feeling her own drunken breath exhaling from her mouth and wanting to leave the moment she arrived.  
  
Entering the office, she hoped to find solitude and quiet to regain her composure, completely forgetting that she had an appointment at nine. The woman was there, waiting patiently in the chair at her desk.  
  
Catherine Grant.  
  
Former Queen of All Media. Alzheimer's diagnosed in January of that same year, advancing rapidly, stage two. And nothing she or any other brilliant physician could do to slow the disease.  
  
"Good morning, Miss Grant." She greeted her as cheerfully as possible. "I'm sorry for the delay, I had to deal with a situation." The lie now seemed inherent to her and she sat down, analyzing the latest exams on the desk. No changes. "How are you feeling today?"  
  
Catherine smiled politely at her and Alexandra watched with bitterness as she looked too young for the disease to be getting worse as it was.  
  
"Excellent, Dr. Danvers. Don't worry about being late, time changes in the course of my circumstances."  
  
She spoke without a hint of resentment and Alexandra could barely understand.  
  
"Should we now try the experimental medications I suggested?"  
  
The patient smiled again, almost dismissively. "I came to say goodbye, Dr. Danvers."  
  
"I beg you pardon?" Alexandra finally seemed to squander her apathy, frowning at her. "Are you feeling all right, Miss Grant?"  
  
"Excellent, as I said." Catherine nodded calmly. "I decided to stop the treatment."  
  
"May I ask why?"  
  
"We both know that we are not making the satisfactory progress we anticipated when I came to this hospital in the early spring, Dr. Danvers. I refuse to feel the constant lack of control and numbness, it is enough for me. Let my memories disappear in peace."  
  
Alexandra was again unable to understand.  
  
She felt so close to the abyss that she almost gave in to the urge to exclaim to a patient, Catherine Grant, resigned and peaceful before her in the face of an incurable disease, that if she could she would be numb and out of control all the time.  
  
"Are you aware that it's not just your head? The whole body deteriorates, Miss Grant."  
  
"I'm aware, thank you. Don't worry. I make this decision while it's still mine to do so."  
  
"I understand, Miss Grant." She smiled and nodded. "You have my number and the hospital's. We will be ready if you need our services."  
  
"Thank you, Dr. Danvers." Catherine stood up elegantly and suddenly there seemed to be nothing wrong breaking her body and mind. "May you continue to pursue ways to heal."  
  
"Take good care of yourself, Miss Grant."  
  
The woman left the office and Alexandra sank into her chair. Every patient she saw for the rest of the day, every medical record she read, every word she heard, everything seemed to be disappearing from her mind. She was nothing but a robot in automatic mode, advising and prescribing without having a clue how.  
  
At the end of the day she was swallowing intoxicated coffee with brandy again, hidden among the cars in the hospital parking lot. She looked up at the lampposts above and thought of green eyes and red lips and felt her body throb with the desire to surrender again to that woman who was a stranger after all. She thought about Lena Luthor and getting lost in her in the finite space of a night, at the edge of sweat and spittle and fluid.  
  
But even that point of escape had slipped between her fingers.  
  
It was no longer a void about losing Kelly many months ago to count. It was all about herself and a torment she couldn't run from. Without name and without shape and without reason that she can express, or maybe that she has buried it so deep inside her that she can no longer reach.  
  
She walked intoxicated under lights and stars and there was no beauty that could capture her soul, only a painful and needy body and the poison of alcohol pulsing through her veins. And when she stopped back in the lobby to continue the uninterrupted twenty-hour shift, her feet braked on the floor and suddenly she smiled genuinely.  
  
Hank Henshaw, chief of surgery, came worried through the corridor, hands in his lab coat pockets, leaning in confusion to the petrified psychiatrist in the lobby with an insane smile on her face.  
  
"Doctor Danvers?" He called cautiously. "Is everything fine?"  
  
Alexandra looked at him and her smile spread like a cheshire cat.  
  
"Chief Henshaw." She raised her eyebrows. "I quit."  
  
Before he could question or stop her, she was running through the parking lot and into the streets, crossing the avenue full of cars, sweating in a frantic heartbeat, never looking behind.


	2. The Intersection Within Two Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. Here we go to the second fragment.
> 
> Wish you a good reading. :)

The gallery doors opened and people immediately scattered around the space, snowflakes left by their feet on the way. Kara took a deep breath, more satisfied than anxious, adjusting the orange bow tie and looking one last time to check that the velvet derby shoes were not smeared with any trace of paint. After almost a year, the exhibition was finally ready and not even the blizzard outside prevented people from entering under the gallery's yellow lamps and enjoying the paintings with tea and coffee and hot chocolate in their cups.  
  
Kara strolled between the paintings and admirers, hands on her back, her golden hair braided over her right shoulder, the first time she has been genuinely happy in months.  
In the lobby the big sign announced the name in silver letters: _"The Hues of Memory."  
  
_ She walked silently until she caught a glimpse of a woman looking for a long time at a painting she composed almost three years ago. It was a reddish silhouette on a huge white background, with splashes of paint all around. Approaching, she recognized the woman and couldn't help but greet her.  
  
"Miss Luthor!" Kara smiled gently and offered her hand. "I am..."  
  
"Kara Zor-El." Lena smiled just as gently, accepting the greeting. "You interviewed me a couple of years ago about the Circinus operation."  
  
"You remember." She nodded. "I wouldn't expect to see you here."  
  
"Nor would I, but when I saw your name at the exhibition, I had to check. I didn't know you painted."  
  
"I always loved it, but it's my first exhibition." She looked at the reddish silhouette in front of them.  
  
"You are doing great." Lena also admired the work again. "This is my favorite."  
  
Kara tilted her head and tried to read the features on her downcast face. "Are you okay, Miss Luthor? You look... Distant. I heard your project will fly tomorrow. _Horologium_ , right?"  
  
"You're right. I'm fine, though, thank you." Lena smiled politely. "I'm excited about the project. But it is a long journey and I needed time surrounded by some... Simplicity."  
  
"Oh, I love simple things!" Kara was excited. "You should have seen..."  
  
Suddenly the words rolled around Kara's tongue and she fell silent. Flashes and clicks of a camera woke her up and she turned involuntarily, as if it were providential, as if she knew.  
  
Catherine Grant was with a polaroid in the middle of the gallery, photographing a painting. Glasses hanging from her neck, black flowered circle skirt, cream coloured blouse with sleeves folded at the elbows, a pearl necklace and a tweed overcoat floating on her shoulders. Her eyes capturing everything. And she never looked more beautiful.  
  
"Miss Zor-El?" Lena worried.  
  
"I'm sorry, Miss Luthor." Kara gasped, trying to smile. "Enjoy the exhibition. It was a pleasure to see you again. Good luck with your project."  
  
"I will. And the pleasure was all mine." Lena understood, waving goodbye. "Good luck with your artistic expression."  
  
Kara couldn't help it. It was a gravitational force dragging her towards Catherine, a whole year of absence, so long without seeing her and without touching her and after all the failed attempts to reach her and now she was there, still sovereign over her heart. She approached it slowly, standing next to her in front of a painting she composed with newspaper clippings, just a magnanimous smile, two eyes, a nose and a necklace representing pearls in an arc below.  
  
"Anything you like?" She dared to speak up.  
  
Surprisingly, Catherine just turned her head to look at her and smiled as if it were the most natural gesture to do. "Is it possible not to like it? I've never been to such an honest exhibition."  
  
"Honest?" Kara raised her eyebrows, giving a floppy laugh.  
  
"Look around you." Catherine glimpsed the gallery, turning to the painting and sighing in ecstasy. "This artist is clearly in love. All of these works represent the same woman."  
  
If Kara's heart was made of ink, it would be bursting with colour for every corner of the gallery.  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"The patterns are interspersed between the images. Sometimes in the silhouette, sometimes in the adornments, like the pearl necklace. In some, only the colors seem to change. In some others, only the texture. The lips are always the same."  
  
Kara stared for a second at the pearl necklace Catherine was wearing almost hidden under the tweed overcoat collar. "You're very perceptive, Miss..." And then she held on the truth, hoping she would board.  
  
"Cat Grant." Catherine smiled and greeted her with a handshake and for a second Kara thought that she wouldn't be able to let her go.  
  
But she did.  
  
"You're very perceptive, Miss Grant." She laughed awkwardly, adjusting her glasses.  
  
Catherine blushed. Kara wanted to hold her in her arms and laugh and adore her, because she rarely blushed and on these rare occasions she was a treasure trove.  
  
"And who would you be?" Catherine raised an eyebrow. "You look familiar."  
  
Hopes echoed in Kara's head, but she knew that she couldn't catch it, because at the same time she was invaded and overwhelmed by the question. Her stomach turned and she would have run away if it weren't for the inescapable fact that it hurt to be a stranger to her, but it hurt even more not to be near her.  
  
"How rude of me, I'm sorry." She laughed awkwardly again. "I'm Kara Zor-El."  
  
"Oh...!" Then Catherine burst through her last defenses, opening a genuine smile and almost panting happily. "You are the artist."  
  
And Kara knew she wouldn't recognize her, but it was enough to just hear the joy and enthusiasm in her voice at the mention of her name.  
  
"Flesh and blood." She hummed and shrugged.  
  
"What you created is marvelous, Miss Zor-El."  
  
"Just Kara, please." She continued to laugh awkwardly, almost sheepishly, unable to remain whole in front of that woman. "I'm glad you appreciate it."  
  
Because it was still Cat, although she didn't recognize Kara. She would forever be Cat, the Queen of All Media, the woman who built an empire and raised two dignified lads, the woman who faced powerful corporations and terrorist attacks. The extraordinary unparalleled woman who sparked her love and inspired her to become the person she became. And while they remained surrounded by the paintings for the same woman, The Hues of Memory, smiling at each other with no reason to verbalize, Kara wished they still belonged to each other so she could hold her and declare that all the paintings are in fact her because she was everything that inhabited Kara's dreams.  
  
"I'm afraid that my journey through your art has ended." Catherine broke the enchanted silence, staring at the alarm clock on the cell phone screen. "You're very brave to grant this to the world. She must be a lucky woman."  
  
It was like fire crawling in her lungs.  
  
But Kara smiled.  
  
"Be safe out there, Miss Grant."  
  
Catherine nodded and hung the polaroid around her neck, putting on her overcoat and leaving without further goodbyes. Kara turned to her paintings and held back the tears, feeling her disappear again from her sight, letting her go a second time that hurt almost as much as the first one. She couldn't keep her eyes on while it happened, she was afraid she would run and take her hand and ask for another moment to absorb her features, to love her in silence and loneliness.  
  
And then, like the tolls of a miraculous bell, the voice echoed through the gallery.  
  
"Kara!"  
  
An eternized instant. Kara turned quickly to answer the call, her eyes filled with tears that she didn't notice, but a smile on her face at the mere sound of the voice that used to guide and calm and undo her. A click of the polaroid and there it was, a single blurry photo of a woman with both tears and sparkling smile in the middle of a stone gallery.  
  
A hue of memory.  
  
Catherine admired the photo for a moment and smiled at Kara for the last time, leaving the gallery to face the snow outside. And Kara was lost for a moment, a tear streaming and breaking in the line on her lips in the most genuine open smile.  
  
When deciding to walk again among the paintings and admirers, she could only smile when she noticed that Lena Luthor had left and taken with her the reddish silhouette painting.  
  
  
  
Catherine didn't remember the porter's name, but she always greeted him and received an incomprehensible look of compassion. She climbed the stairs, ignoring the empty elevator, trying to maintain the gallery experience on her mind for as long as possible.  
  
Snow hit the studio's great windows and she quickly turned on the heater, watching for a moment her home filled with photographs, records of a world that was falling apart, and the large, wheeled board in the center that worked as her diary to whatever her mind wanted to project.  
  
She loved the safety instructions hanging from strings on cabinets, the bathroom door and the stove, and every day she enjoyed a new book with the impression that she had already read it. And maybe in other times she would say that her favorite space is the comfortable bergère armchair of aged leather in the window or the fridge full of old wines or even the art-nouveau decor, but when she held the picture of Kara Zor-El in her hands, she immediately recognized the most special corner of the studio.  
  
Something vibrated inside her, a sensation that was unknown and terrifying and wonderful. She walked over and pasted the photo on the wall with double-sided tape, moving away to contemplate it, feeling inexplicable tears stinging her eyelids.  
  
An entire mural for photos of a lovely golden-haired stranger, clubmaster eyeglass and a golden retriever smile with a purity and tenderness that Catherine has never seen anything to compare.  
  
She hated mysteries that she couldn't solve. As fragmented as her memories were, she struggled not to forget the great hunting journalist she always was.  
  
But there, before that mural, and since she started composing it, she embraced the unconsciousness of the meaning, pouring old wine into a glass and sitting in the comfortable bergère armchair of aged leather by the windows, enjoying each of the photographs, some that she already owned without knowing why, some that she picked up from newspaper and magazine clippings, even one that was photographed the night Kara Zor-El received a Pulitzer for an investigation against the mobster Ben Lockwood. It was a photograph of the blonde smiling proudly with the award, but still humble and kind, the perfect photo the photographer James Olsen himself gave to Catherine when she asked, he being a former colleague and Catco employee before resigning due to the death of his sister.  
  
And finally the polaroid record, fresh in her memory, but already trying to escape.  
  
She might not know her, but she knew who she was, in a certain way. She went to the exhibition to try to remember. And although it didn't work, the sensation remained inside her.  
  
For a moment she thought and believed that she knew Kara Zor-El. Perhaps passing by in other times, perhaps souls from another life, perhaps lost in the disordered pieces of her head. Why seeing her in the gallery, smiling, looking at her with affection out of place, something burst in Catherine's blurry mind. She felt scared and confused, broken flashes of memory bringing migraines, nothing she could control or classify or even keep.  
  
But it filled her. It made her overflow.  
  
And for brief moments, sometimes she seemed to love that adorable stranger with all her heart, even though it made no sense in the world.  
  
Perhaps just as time changed in the course of her circumstances, emotions would follow the same pattern. And Catherine Grant could accept it.  
  
The ringing phone woke her up to find Samantha's name on the screen and she answered in distress. "Miss Arias?" She exhaled. "What happened? Is Carter okay?"  
  
It took the woman a second to respond, a disguised sigh sounding on the other side and she clearing her throat before speaking. "Everything is fine, Miss Grant. I'm calling to cancel our breakfast tomorrow, I have an early conference."  
  
"A conference? Who will take care of Carter? I won't be able to return to Metropolis until next tuesday."  
  
"I promise that Carter is safe with me." Sam laughed. "We're going to reschedule breakfast soon, okay?"  
  
The answer did not come immediately, and Sam wondered if she had forgotten to answer, grieving for a moment until she heard a sigh that was too long and too thick, the pitch of Catherine's voice changing completely.  
  
"Are you okay, Sam?"  
  
In the soft murmur, Sam knew it was another Catherine.  
  
"I'm fine, Cat." She contained a smile. "You?"  
  
"Glorious." Satisfaction made Sam laugh on the other side. "I went to an art exhibition today."  
  
"Really? What was it about?"  
  
“Paintings. The expression of a passionate artist and the countless shapes of her lover."  
  
"Did you know the artist?"  
  
"Not that I remember, but she is a well-known journalist." Catherine laughed without a hint of irony. "Her name was Kara Zor-El."  
  
Sam cleared her throat and laughed nervously, but the cars passing behind her on the avenue masked the inevitable anxiety. "Did you like it?"  
  
"It is impressive, absolutely impressive." A pause. A long pause and a strange sigh before she went on. “Maybe I should take Carter. I know he only thinks about comics, but art would do that kid good. Don't you think?”  
  
And suddenly Sam knew that the reality had reversed itself again.  
  
"I bet he would love it, Miss Grant." She followed the change. "I better go. Don't forget the breakfast. We will reschedule."  
  
"Definitely, dear girl." Catherine nodded to herself as if nothing had happened. "Take care, Miss Arias."  
  
"You too, Miss Grant."  
  
Catherine hung up and took a minute to blink, stunned for an infinite moment.  
  
Realization.  
  
Carter Grant was a young man of twenty-one years.  
  
  
  
Sam pressed the button for the seventh floor of the building, hitting the snowflakes on her suit and making a mental note to ask Miss Ardeen, the owner of the studio, to check to ensure that Catherine would not recklessly flee to Metropolis next week, she needed to prevent after that worrying call. She took a second to sigh in the safe, empty space, closing her eyes and letting her head hit the metal wall.  
  
When did it happen that every day became so hellish?  
  
She couldn't fool herself. She knew exactly when. Months ago, under the twilight on the pier. Everything broke and Lena went into intense training and practice three days later and they haven't seen each other since. Checking the calendar earlier that day, she remembered that the launch was scheduled for the next day and she didn't hear from Lena, she didn't speak to Lena. She was so scared that it paralyzed her.  
  
Her best friend, the woman she loves, was leaving for outer space.  
  
And there was nothing she could do.  
  
However, life could still surprise her as she left the elevator and walked through the wide corridor for an evening of inevitable wine and insomnia. It wasn't until she was taking the keys out of her purse and rummaging, looking at the carpet, that she saw the pair of high heels when she was almost arriving at the apartment.  
  
It was like slow motion.  
  
Sam looked up as if the world was braking.  
  
Leaning against the door, there she was. Lena Luthor, pale and exhausted, but almost serene, staring at her, in a dark three-piece suit showing her curves as if she were a delightful sin, snow still melting in her hair. And Sam wondered if she was wrong and in fact she was already overcome by tiredness and asleep on the couch inside the apartment with the television drizzling and a glass upside down on the floor and she was already dreaming about everything that didn't make sense.  
  
"Hey." Lena smiled.  
  
The sweet familiar sound should have been music to her ears, but it sparked something resentful inside Sam. She ignored the greeting and burst into the apartment, dropping her purse on the floor and leaving the door open, turning on only the tiny lamp in the lobby little table. And Lena entered patiently, closing it and dropping her purse on the floor as well, watching as she walked in circles with her hands on her hips, completely confused and afflicted.  
  
"Hey?" Sam turned after an indefinite time. "You disappeared for months without a word and now you show up at my door and say _'Hey'_?  
  
Surprisingly, Lena smiled with the same tenderness, leaning against the closed door, the darkness of the apartment almost devouring them, supported only by the tiny lamp. "You know I was never the most predictable."  
  
There was an indisputable truth in the deal.  
  
"Never." She whispered in acceptance.  
  
Silence remained between them, stopping all the unspoken words. It was a powerful condition, because it held the domain of nurturing and devastating in the same proportion, and even so the two equidistants would hurt so much that Sam wondered if she could bear.  
  
"I thought you would call." Lena started again and Sam's defensive instincts almost came into play, but Lena went on before she could be stopped. "Because you were always braver than me. I ran away, because I'm a coward. There wasn't a single day when I didn't want to reach you."  
  
At the mention of courage, Sam was brave.  
  
"For what?" She couldn't help her voice from being painful and shaky.  
  
In contrast, Lena's voice faltered and hurt with hers. "Don't you know already?" She shrugged, tears welling up on her eyelids, sparkling in the green. "Don't you know that I love you? That I think I have loved you since you bumped me on the beach?"  
  
It takes too much inside Sam to rationalize the breathless moment. Everything she should do: Fight with her. Yell at her. Send her away. Be indifferent to her. Deny her.  
  
Run away from her.  
  
But if in a few hours Lena would be out of the atmosphere and it was too late for them to give vent to the love they had shared for so long without knowing, it was too late for her to run away.  
  
Sam took a deep breath just to certify that she could barely breathe and then crossed the apartment at the same time that Lena's feet moved towards her and they fell into each other in the middle of invisible rubble. She felt her blood vibrate and boil inside her body when she took Lena's lips and kissed her for the first and maybe last time. Her hands trembled on her face and cold skin and Lena whimpered against her mouth.  
  
She waited for that precise moment, the one she knew would change everything she ever faced, and everything she wanted was to take her time to appreciate it, but it became an inescapable and feverish frenzy, blazer and suit off, shirts and waistcoat off, the tie dangling between Lena's breasts, trousers crumpled at the knees and under the feet and the two of them grunting and laughing as they bumped into the table of the tiny lamp, swinging the fire and making everything dark again to slide lingerie straps and elastics.  
  
Between careless stumbles and trivial whispers, they broke the darkness together and fell into eternal redemption on the bed, the only instant Sam was able to stop, kneeling on the mattress, straddling her, hands clamped on the sheet on the sides of her head and Lena's hair spread in a black stream around her flushed, supplicant face.  
  
But the supplication came from Sam herself. "Say it again." She whispered. "Just one more time."  
  
Lena immediately rose from the mattress, holding her waist and back, nails in the flesh, tight bodies, her warm breath in the valley between Sam's breasts. "I love you." She kissed the valley reverently, closing her eyes. "I love you." She kept her lips there, confessing over her skin. "I love you, I love you, I lov..."  
  
And Sam, as before, knew that she couldn't bear. But she accepted defeat, she accepted surrender, exhaling a glorious melody and diving for another kiss, dropping them both to sink to the mattress, the frenzy unstoppable again.  
  
Secretly, far from elucidation, they both know that they have tried to avoid feeling too much for a long time. The challenges they experienced, the losses they faced, the abysmal falls, having in the end only each other, all corroborating them to seek stability and security at work and purpose and less in conflicting emotions. But the fact is that such emotions have always been there, precisely from one to the other and vice versa, caged in caution.  
  
At that moment in the darkness of the apartment, caution was doomed. And Sam could feel everything multiplied. Freedom when they exclaimed in ecstasy and laughed. Pressure when fingers and tongues moved within. Burning when teeth and nails dragged. Affection when eyes and foreheads met. Loss when they briefly remembered that tomorrow everything would be shattered. Triumph in the confessed words. Disaster in shared tears. Resilience when all the whys and all the fears and grudges have been forgotten for the mind and heart to harbor all the other glorious sensations until exhaustion carries them together to fall asleep in the last spurs in a mess of sheets and tired limbs. Sweat on the eyebrows. Red marks. Light and warm fountain.  
  
Everything.  
  
And everything against time.  
  
  
  
Lena dressed in the IEVA space suit, holding the helmet under her arm, and stared at her own reflection in the mirror. Last night's and that morning's reminiscences burned on the back of her head and she couldn't tell how much of her stayed in the apartment with Sam.  
  
They woke up together and had coffee together as a normal, happy couple, with Sam hugging her from behind while she was making waffles and she putting fruit in her mouth playfully. They danced in the kitchen. They said how much they loved each other again. They made love again over the counter.  
  
And then they held each other in silence and there were tears and no courage enough for goodbyes. Sam to the right, for the conference with the CEO of Lord Technologies. Lena to the left, toward the NASA operations center, a faint sun in the sky melting last night's snow.  
  
She is a scientist, she believes in facts and formulas and recognizes all the proven laws of the universe, but all she wanted was some kind of magic that could bend time and keep her in Sam's arms. Just a little more. Just for another clock pointer.  
  
There were exciting celebrations, photography, applause and goodbyes between the mission team and their beloved ones around the reporters, but Lena crossed the station like a passerby ghost wandering without touching the ground.  
  
She couldn't stay, but she was afraid. She feared that she would climb across the platform and collapse completely and never be able to rebuild herself.  
  
And while the first call was echoing, she took the cell phone that would stay behind in the hands of the operator outside the ship and dialed the required number.  
  
The phone rang and rang and she felt disgustingly selfish.  
  
But as for everything else, it was too late.  
  
Sam answered and muffled voices came from the other side. Maxwell Lord mocking her interest in the conference. Sam demanding a moment. He asking if that was more important. She boldly saying that she needed to answer and that he could get out of there if he couldn't bear to wait. And then a door closing and the voices disappearing.  
  
 _"Hey..."_ Sam's soft voice came.  
  
Lena thought she could scream, everything inside her bursting into a heartbeat.  
  
"I love you." Lena exhaled.  
  
 _"I love you too."_ Sam responded with the same certainty.  
  
"Ask me to stay."  
  
Sam gasped. _"What? Lena..."_  
  
"You are the only existence that can keep me grounded." Lena's voice was shaky and terrified. "Ask me to stay and I will stay."  
  
For a moment she truly thought Sam would say the words and everything else would be like a silly romantic movie and she would run away from NASA's operations center and Sam would run out of the conference and they would find themselves somewhere still snowing in the middle of National City and the world would find its meaning forever.  
  
But suddenly she heard the sniff and Sam was bursting into tears, trying to start a word one, two, three times, crying and almost sobbing like Lena never expected before.  
  
 _"Lena, I-i..."_ She stammered. _"I can't."_  
  
"Sam..." She felt the sting of her own tears.  
  
 _"This is your dream."_ Sam didn't flinch. _"I love you more than anything, but you belong to the stars. You have to do this."_  
  
Always too late.  
  
"I'm afraid this will take me away from you forever."  
  
 _"Oh, Lena..."_ Sam laughed with sweet and almost amused bitterness. _"There's no force in space or earth that can take me from you. I want you to go outside, conquer the universe and then come back to me. Promise you'll try."_  
  
Lena gave in to tears, nodding to herself in the solitude of the lawn in the middle of the space station. "I promise." A moment of painful silence, but granted. "Can you promise me something too?"  
  
 _"Anything."_  
  
"Promise me that you will be the happiest you can."  
  
Again the certainty pulled the strings and she would swear Sam was smiling. _"I promise."_ She sniffed. _"I'm happy now. For you. For me. For both of us and the mess we make of ourselves."_  
  
Lena finally released a genuine laugh. "We do this, don't we?"  
  
 _"We do."_ Sam laughed with her. _"But I love it."_  
  
"I love you, Samantha Arias. And now it seems too much."  
  
The second call echoed behind her and Sam sighed in pain. _"Now you go."_ She reaffirmed. _"To the stars."_  
  
"I will come back."  
  
 _"I know."_ Another weak sigh. _"And I will be here."_  
  
"Goodbye, Sammy."  
  
 _"I'll see you soon, Lena."_  
  
The instant still on call sounded like an eternity until Lena hung up and walked with watery determined eyes to the platform, to get on the rocket and do her duty and then return as soon as possible. Because suddenly returning was just as important as going.  
  
And on the other side, where she couldn't see, Samantha put on her gray chesterfield coat and immediately postponed the conference, leaving the building in an endless stream of tears, to the only place where she could find comfort of some kind.  
  
  
  
Alexandra Danvers didn't known how long she had been sitting in the Legion Caffeine's chair. She came often to the place since she resigned, amongst all the other places she has been crawling and languishing on her own. It turns out that the shot backfired and being unemployed didn't bring any new perspective out of misery.  
  
She watched the door open and close with couples holding hands, elderly people with newspapers, groups of teenagers and people in suits and suitcases, the bell echoing non-stop and the cold wind invading the space. Nia Nal, the waitress, pretended not to see her dipping brandy in her coffee, offering only a sad smile and going out to supervise the donut stock.  
  
She also overheard random conversations about the weather, the next weekend, the next school semester and even the coffee shop owner, the lovely Imra Ardeen, whispering to Miss Nal that she would have to go out to check on a tenant and that she would be back in the afternoon, quickly leaving the cold outside without a coat. The words and movements went through her ears and eyes as alcohol and hot coffee burned in her throat, meaningless, no sense at all.  
  
She didn't need to go back to a job yet, there was enough money from the inheritance that her dead parents left and all that was left of Kelly. She didn't need company, because she wasn't good company at all. She didn't need a psychology professional, she was already one and she knew exactly what she would hear from another.  
  
Bitter world.  
  
An old lady in a glaring orange coat waved to the waitress and dispersed Alexandra from the torment for a minute. Nia Nal smiled and took the remote under the counter to turn up the TV and Alexandra followed with her eyes, forgetting for a moment the intoxicated coffee to hear the excited reporter on the screen.  
  
It was NASA's operations center and the man with the microphone chattered about the Horologium mission and how Lena Luthor was about to make history, the last few seconds of the image capturing the woman entering the ship.  
  
"She's an astronaut." Alex whispered to herself, closing her eyes and tossing her short red hair back to sigh deeply. "Makes sense."  
  
The redhead got up and dropped crumpled dollars on the table, crawling out into the cold streets with the rest of the intoxicated coffee. The walk was long, because it was towards nowhere. She realized, losing the last thread of something indescribable that she clung to, that she didn't miss the mysterious Lena Luthor between the sheets with her in that hotel. They didn't know each other, they weren't lovers, they weren't friends.  
  
They were nothing to each other, but suddenly she seemed more empty than before.  
  
Alexandra dropped the rest of the coffee in the nearest trash can and did what she had done before when the world had twisted again in front of her eyes. She tightened the laces on her boots and started running.  
  
The sidewalks were slippery with ice, so she ran into the asphalt, almost too close to the speeding cars. She saw the city blurring by, freezing wind burning and reddening her face, but she couldn't stop.  
  
It felt like a purpose. She ran out of breath and almost tripped over a short woman in a hat with a polaroid in front of an art gallery that she almost recognized, but blurs in all forms prevented her from deducing. She staggered north and ran into a blonde woman with glasses walking out with a box from The National Herald, waving an apology without looking at her protests as she continued the run. Her heart was fire for the first time in a long time.  
  
She realized that she reached the coast and then she finally stopped, her feet vibrating like a lightning bolt. There was snow on the sand and lonely people walking, the morning wind even sharper on her skin.  
  
Alexandra continued walking aimlessly, without thoughts, without defense against her own steps. She stepped onto the pier and saw in the distance a woman in a gray chesterfield coat, sitting on a bench, her body swaying in distress and her eyes fixed on the sky, as if she was looking for something up there as tears streamed down her swollen face.  
  
Something like frustration seemed to fill Alexandra's chest, but she wasn't sure. All because she wanted to be able to shed tears, she wanted to be able to shiver and look for something, to feel something out of the void within her. But there was nothing, her stomach was filled with coffee and brandy, but she couldn't feel it, her feet burned from running, but she couldn't feel it. Her whole life was falling apart, but it felt like nothing.  
  
Then she walked.  
  
And walked.  
  
And walked a little further.  
  
She found herself wandering on the edge of the pier and an unrecognizable voice echoing in the distance.  
  
How cold the sea water would be, dark and foggy in the middle of winter...  
  
Hollow heavy sound of two seconds and the world was silent. Painful impact burned her skin, pressure on her body, the roaring of blood and lungs. She went down and down, sinking in.  
  
It was an accident?  
  
It was an attempt?  
  
But after the immediate effect of pain, it still felt like nothing. And suddenly she despaired, because there was no turning back and she couldn't move, lost in liquid darkness, unable to breathe or stop the oppressive and invasive water.  
  
When she was almost losing consciousness, as if she were trapped in a dream and woke up abruptly, something grabbed her by the jacket and she was pulled to the surface.  
  
Then everything went dark again.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soon the last fragment will be here. I have a huge compulsion to explain everything, but I think this time I prefer to let the story go and find its end as it should be.
> 
> Thank you for your consideration. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Glad you got down here. Two more fragments to go. 
> 
> Note: I wasn't able to bring our Danvers Sisters into this and I am sorry for it, but I hope it hasn't stopped you from enjoying it.
> 
> See you guys soon.
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


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